"David and Saul", by He Qi.
1 Samuel 18:12 - Saul was afraid of David because the Lord was with him but had departed from Saul.
Can we agree that jealousy makes us do stupid things? But Saul takes the cake in the jealousy department.
Saul was accustomed to being the man of the hour, but if you recall, he disobeyed God, and God removed himself from Saul. This was painfully brought to Saul's attention when the prophet Samuel hacked Agag to pieces with a sword.
Things now start to get weird, and Saul has set out to kill David. He goes off the deep end when he hears women singing the praises of David, over their king!
Saul has become a raving lunatic in his desire to see David destroyed. He throws his spear at him, but misses, he sends David to battle, hoping that David will be killed. But David is fabulously successful, and the hatred grows even deeper.
David marries Saul daughter Michal, Saul's son Jonathan is best friends with David, and so it continues. Everywhere king Saul turns, there is David is his face, threatening his popularity.
Eventually, David runs to the prophet Samuel to evade certain death. Saul learns of this and sends three groups of men to confront Samuel. But God has different plans, and these three groups of men, who intended to do the king's bidding, wind up as putty in the hands of God before Samuel, and are brought into submission before God.
Saul, upset that these three groups of men have failed, decides to take matters into his own hands. He marches to Samuel, and God forces king Saul into submission, and further comes upon him in such a way that Saul strips off his clothing and lays around naked for a day, and night! Weird, and greatly humiliating.
I don't know whether to laugh at this scene, or be mortified. What a scene this must have been?
Do you suppose that king Saul was laughed at, as he was forced into this humiliating position before God?
How must this "tormenting spirit" tortured Saul after this?
It is instructive for us to note that God will not be challenged. In various places in the Bible, we see God actually physically imposing his will upon his adversaries.
Can you wrap your mind around this? Saul is on the attack, God forces him into submission, and Saul wind up prophesying (the Spirit of God came on Saul to take away his self-control and turn his hostility to prophetic praise), and stripping his clothing off (And he too stripped off his clothes. The aggressive, angry king is humbled, even comically humiliated, before the power of the Lord, against whom he vainly strives.) Note: parenthetic notes above from the ESV Study Bible.
What could have possibly been worse, for proud King Saul, then to suffer this humiliation. Certainly there was an entourage of people with him who witnessed this. I see a real mad man brewing!
I still don't quite know how to file this scene away in my mind. There have been most difficult things brought to my view, in reading through this text, but this one is just weird.
Clearly, opposing God is folly.
